"But where did the frog come from? Not AP Physics 1 Essentials, its author, David Fullerton, told me over the phone: “I was working on a problem about rotation. I thought the art was interesting, and so I made the problem about that.” Fullerton, who teaches high school physics, said he would ask his students about Dat Boi." (SLNYM)

Its opposite for me I get snapchat 100% (after a millennial explained it to me in detail) but this meme is just... not even a meme? It's just a frog. Feels bad manposted by Potomac Avenue at 1:47 PM on May 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

I think a person's reaction upon seeing dat boi says a lot about him or her. The job interviewer is obviously intimidated, Aragorn is anxious, Luke is impressed, and Brad Pitt is just joyful. They are all saying "o shit waddup" but the way they say it speaks volumes. How you react to dat boi may be how you react to life.posted by ND¢ at 2:02 PM on May 12, 2016 [23 favorites]

On January 8, 1993, the film Leprechaun was released. It was awful, by most conventional metrics. A few days later, some night show host made a joke about it being "the best movie of 1993", because it was the only movie of 1993. Ha-ha. I have no idea why that lame joke has stuck with me for 23 years.

It may be May 12, but it's feeling pretty early in the year, in good-meme-time.posted by gurple at 2:06 PM on May 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Back in the '80s my dad and his co-workers would amuse themselves by faxing memes back and forth. That's not what they were called, but that's what they were.posted by The Card Cheat at 2:10 PM on May 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

I can't formulate it exactly but the idea of our kids finding memes really boring makes me so happy. More like DAD boi amirite?posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:38 PM on May 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Anti-meme backlash is itself a meme.

Also, even if you hate Reddit, you secretly love Reddit because why are you thinking about it all the timeposted by naju at 2:39 PM on May 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

When I was in high school there was a group of dudebros who decided to all use the word "senator" as a synonym for cool or just as a general greeting. "Senator!!!", they'd shout down the hall at each other, or "That's so senator!". Nobody else got it and it never spread beyond the three or four guys who started it, but they found it hilarious nonetheless.

Yeah, I don't get it. But then again, I don't get a lot of these memes all the kids are sharing these days on the medias with the social webs in all the internet spaces.

Swear to god, sometime fairly recently I believe I officially became an old. The evidence confirming my suspicion seems to be racking up at a rate with which I'm becoming uncomfortable. Oh well. Gotta go, Matlock is starting.posted by bologna on wry at 2:51 PM on May 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't hate memes so much as I just don't understand them 90% of the time. This is one of those times. It's not something that can be explained really - you just get it or not.

If I put pink googly eyes on a blue star and then put the words "Whippedy Doo!" above it I'd either have the new greatest meme of our time or people wondering what the hell is wrong with me and I wouldn't understand either response.posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 2:53 PM on May 12, 2016 [32 favorites]

Clinging, now THAT is a meme I can get behind! Mainly because I am privy to its origin of absolute nonsense. Seriously, that made me laugh. Love it.posted by bologna on wry at 2:59 PM on May 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Personally I "get it" but it's corny in the way, say, Rage Comics from 2009 are, they are already played out within a day or two, and also I could do without ironic AAVEisms employed by white people which all the memes seem to have these days.posted by naju at 3:01 PM on May 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

Yeah it's obnoxious for sure, but AAVE is where all the interesting development in American English is happening today. What do white people have? Business school jargon? It's no wonder white kids these days have to leverage competing brand stories to disrupt that paradigm.posted by [expletive deleted] at 3:15 PM on May 12, 2016 [44 favorites]

But is Dat Boi (o shit waddup) in any way related to Soulja Boy (Tell Em)? Just askin'.

While Dat Boi is no threat to the all-time great frogs, Kermit, Michigan J. and Hypnotoad (all glory to 'im), I have no objections to DB replacing the simply ugly Pepe as the #1 Internet Meme Frog. Just as Grumpy Cat and Keyboard Cat may rule the memes but can't hold a candle to Garfield, Felix or The Cat In The Hat (and I will never accept the absurd premise that Hello Kitty is anything BUT feline), and Doge is no threat to the status of Snoopy, Lassie, Toto or Scooby Doo (all of whom had memes before they were called memes). However, I do need to point out that the field of 'meme otters' is wide open; "Hello from the Otter Slide" has already worn out its welcome.posted by oneswellfoop at 3:42 PM on May 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

"Dat Boi" is interesting because it seems to be a transitional form from old memes whose value was based on reference or humor (let's call it the "doge standard" as a convenience) and towards "fiat memes" whose value derives solely from the consensus that they are memes. While some kooks will argue that we abandon the doge standard at our peril, in fact the move to fiat memes will allow modern fractional reserve memeing as well as more efficient memetary policy. "Dat Boi", also known as a "greenback", is the first step in that direction.posted by Pyry at 3:50 PM on May 12, 2016 [42 favorites]

ironic AAVEisms employed by white people which all the memes seem to have these days

It's not just these days. That's basically been the American pop-cultural move since I first noticed it in the 80s, and research shows it goes back to, at least, the 1840s. Like, that's all we've got. Black Americans innovate on the language, the rest of us coast, and try to claim some kind of cred from how rapidly and ironically we adopt it.posted by Miko at 4:44 PM on May 12, 2016 [15 favorites]

It's not just these days. That's basically been the American pop-cultural move since I first noticed it in the 80s, and research shows it goes back to, at least, the 1840s. Like, that's all we've got. Black Americans innovate on the language, the rest of us coast, and try to claim some kind of cred from how rapidly and ironically we adopt it.

One of my best friends occasionally rode his unicycle to high school. This was back in the Prequirkian Era, and the kids at school didn't seem to think he was as cool as this frog.posted by The Card Cheat at 5:01 PM on May 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

"Dat Boi" is interesting because it seems to be a transitional form from old memes whose value was based on reference or humor (let's call it the "doge standard" as a convenience) and towards "fiat memes" whose value derives solely from the consensus that they are memes

The larger internet refers to your "fiat memes" as a "Forced Meme". That is, a meme that is spread, not through some humorous event or situation, but through people spam posting said meme and referring to it as meme. In many ways, Forced Memes resemble Bitcoin. Inherently they have no value, but enough people have decided they do, and while unofficial, they seem to hold some weight.

It's no wonder white kids these days have to leverage competing brand stories to disrupt that paradigm.

This is no great insight on my part, but many people's Instagrams and Snapchats seem like exactly this...carefully curated brands of the self. It gives me the heebie jeebies. Is there a Weird Instagram or Weird Snapchat I'm missing out on?posted by Jon Mitchell at 7:11 PM on May 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

In other frog-based news, ABC has cancelled The Muppets. NOOOOOOOOO. You better believe I blame Dat Boi...posted by oneswellfoop at 7:24 PM on May 12, 2016

Weird Snapchat I'm missing out on?

I can't speak to instagram, but weird snapchat is why snapchat exists. Except you don't see it, we only send it to our friends and then it's gone forever. Our Stories on Snapchat are of course curated. Just like the rest of our lives.posted by mayonnaises at 7:38 PM on May 12, 2016

It reminds me of nothing so much as Dave Letterman and Paul Shaffer repeating some stupid phrase 100 times throughout the show to try to make it funny.

Sounds like more fun than humans should be allowed to have.posted by Greg_Ace at 9:17 PM on May 12, 2016

When I was in high school there was a group of dudebros who decided to all use the word "senator" as a synonym for cool or just as a general greeting.

When I was at summer camp in high school there was this punk rock girl who decided to do this with the word "chicken." She started using it as a greeting for everyone, but it rather backfired on her because instead of the entire camp starting to use the word in the way she intended, everyone just started calling her Chicken. She was cool with it, and just kept using it her way, but she was universally "Chicken." I have no idea what her real name was at this point.posted by threeturtles at 9:30 PM on May 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

When I was in high school there was a group of dudebros who decided to all use the word "senator" as a synonym for cool or just as a general greeting. "Senator!!!", they'd shout down the hall at each other, or "That's so senator!". Nobody else got it and it never spread beyond the three or four guys who started it, but they found it hilarious nonetheless.

oh my god at some point in the thread i started laughing so much it was painful. Not really sure why, I mean, it's funny but why am I maybe literally dying hereposted by angrycat at 5:14 AM on May 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

If Whippedy Doo!!! ever becomes an emoji, I will carry this oar meme inland until I find people who do not recognise memes.

mykescipark, thanks for this, I never thought I'd ever get a laugh out of that album art, but here we are.posted by adept256 at 8:03 AM on May 13, 2016

I did the meme.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl An hour ago [4 favorites +] [!]

Like, if people ever doubt that Mrs. Pterodactyl is a Metafilter treasure, there's stuff like this.posted by zutalors! at 8:17 AM on May 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't get people who say I don't get it.

There's nothing to get. It's a frog on a unicycle.

I 'get' that part. It's funny or cute or whatever. But why did this one take off and another very similar one is just universally meh? That I don't get. I don't see why this silly thing is better or worse than other silly things. There are people in this thread and elsewhere saying X meme is better than Y meme. I'll never understand, but then I don't need to and I don't care to. It's just interesting to me.
I'd like to thank Clinging to the Wreckage and MSPaint

I just hammered some nonsense into my keyboard quickly. As sad as it is I couldn't have made Whippedy (it's not Mr. or Mrs. Whippedy - just Whippedy) anywhere near as good as you did because of a combination of very poor art skills and trying too hard. Mine would have turned into a horrible mess of squiggles. In my head the star had a mouth forming the OOOO of Whippedy Doo, but yours is better than what was in my head, let alone what I could have put to paper/screen.

And I'm also glad that Whippedy Doo didn't turn out to be some homophobic racist slur I wasn't aware of because that's my usual luck with gibberish I spout.posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 8:31 AM on May 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

But why did this one take off and another very similar one is just universally meh? That I don't get.

I think if you dug into it seriously, you'd find the same things at the heart of it that have driven folklore and social communication for milennia. Like, early adoption by people with a lot of social capital and an outsize number of contacts, particularly contacts spread across a lot of geographic areas and industries so it doesn't become siloed; local boosting champions who command attention in their own smaller networks; a small content twist that feels novel. It does say something that people try to manufacture memes, and for everyone that catches on, millions are forgotten. There's a big process of social sorting, and their popularity has every bit as much to do with who promotes them as the content of the message. Maybe more.posted by Miko at 9:23 AM on May 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

There's nothing to get. It's a frog on a unicycle.

I see a frog on a unicycle, smile at the absurdity and move on.

Other people see it and forward it to everyone they know or else fire up their computers and add the frog on a unicycle (and associated text, of course) to some other image and post it to reddit or tumblr or wherever.

It's just more absurd. What you smile at then is the creativity of their thinking of putting it in a new context, and how imaginative the execution was.posted by Miko at 9:50 AM on May 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Also the frog seems to take on a different expression in each context. Like in the desperate Bagel Bites one, he looks mortified (to me).posted by zutalors! at 10:07 AM on May 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

That's the part I don't get, I guess.

You ever have private slang that you shared with your circle of friends, maybe back when you were in school? The internet makes it possible not to have to know the people you share it with anymore. You participate by repeating the stuff you like.posted by rhizome at 11:27 AM on May 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

I think that the frog carries with it a menace, it is "dat boi" who really fucked some shit up and the one who sees 'dat boi' knows that some serious shit is going to go down.

To me, it's funny in the way that the killer rabbit from The Holy Grail is funny; you don't expect a tiny little rabbit to eat all the flesh off a man's face; similarly, you don't expect a little frog on a unicycle to be a sign of bad shit that you are hoping to fend off with a 'shit not that guy...well hello there'posted by angrycat at 11:28 AM on May 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Right, like when your bully walks into the bathroom while you're in a stall taking a poo.posted by rhizome at 11:36 AM on May 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

thanks bologna. at one point i was lying on the couch, face down, laughing, as mystified family members passed, thinking "Whippedy Doo!" And also Legolas shouting, "It's Dat Boi" as a giant frog on a unicycle menaces the NZ landscape.

My family is mystified by my sense of humor, as I scowl at bad puns but something like this will set me off in sort of a crazy wayposted by angrycat at 6:45 AM on May 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

The problem with fiat memes is that they require so much maintenance because they're always breaking down.posted by Greg_Ace at 4:10 PM on May 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

When I was in high school there was a group of dudebros who decided to all use the word "senator" as a synonym for cool or just as a general greeting. "Senator!!!", they'd shout down the hall at each other, or "That's so senator!". Nobody else got it and it never spread beyond the three or four guys who started it, but they found it hilarious nonetheless.

Stop trying to make senator happen. It's never going to happen.

I worked with some 30 year olds who called each other senator all the time. It was really lame and sad

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